


Contractually Obliged

by Alemantele



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode: e059 Antiques, Gen, Mirrors, Post-Episode: e033 Cassette, bit of headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 19:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3662370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alemantele/pseuds/Alemantele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hearing voices in her head after becoming Night Vale's Mayor was normal--that much was plainly written in chapter 29 of the 5th volume of Night Vale's citizen guide that she did her report on in 10th grade. </p>
<p>Dana just didn't expect the voice to be so...familiar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contractually Obliged

**Author's Note:**

> Blame Jingushi and her art. http://jingushi.tumblr.com/post/115148790352/idea-inspired-from-a-concept-brought-up

The throne is cold, and throbbing with some sort of unknown energy. It pulses red, with the same frequency of the blinking red light up on the mountain. Occasionally, it glows deep purple.

Dana does not like being mayor.

She stares at the blinking red of the throne a lot, lately. It reminds her of the mountain. Dana did not think that she would ever miss that strange other world--she had often thought of coming back home to Night Vale and feeling elated at being home again. But here she is, and she can only stare down at her hands and wonder why she isn’t happy.

The ceremonial mayoral cloak is heavy. Dana bears it with sagging shoulders. It falls over her face, casts her in shadow, but she can still see her hands from here and so she does not move.

There. Again. A flash of dark purple in the corner of her eye.

When she lifts the dark black cloth from her eyes, the throne returns to blinking red. Dana sighs and slumps back down. There are whispers, in her mind, and though she can barely make out the words they are saying she knows they are trying to tell her about the secrets of Night Vale.

Pamela Winchell had looked at her, at the Inauguration, with frustration (no, Dana thinks, it was concern) in her dark dark eyes. “They’ll give you a few days,” she said, and Dana had stared back with wide eyes.

Now, she sits, listening vaguely, wondering how much longer she can ignore the whispers for.

“Oh, Cecil,” she whispers, “I miss the radio station. I miss being an intern. I miss--” she cuts herself off and looks around to see if there are any hooded figures. Or anyone from the council. _I miss you_ , she thinks instead, and bites her lip.

_Oh?_ a voice says, loud in her head, and Dana sits up, startled. Has it begun already? Is her time up? Will she have to learn all the secrets of Night Vale and make mayoral degrees and call emergency press conferences all the time? _You miss me?_

But the voice is too familiar to be whispering from the depths of Night Vale.

“Cecil?” Dana asks hesitantly, narrowing her eyes.

Wow. You’re good at this, the voice says, and Dana hears the strange double echo of someone speaking in her mind and ear at the same time.

She throws off the mayoral cloak. The throne is glowing deep purple.

When she turns her head, just slightly to the right, Dana is sitting in the radio station again but she is still in City Hall. And there is Cecil, standing before her.

She furrows her brows.

It is Cecil but is it not Cecil. His hair--usually perfectly ordinary--seems almost too long now. It looks as if it would fall in front of his face if there were bright purple clips holding it back. His ordinary face is longer than it should be, and his teeth are just slightly crooked.

“Hiya,” not-Cecil says, grinning.

“Who are you?” Dana asks.

Not-Cecil tilts his head, smiling blankly. “I’m Cecil,” he says, but Dana does not believe him.

“No you’re not,” she says, crossing her arms. “I know Cecil and he’s not you.”

“Are you sure you know Cecil?” not-Cecil says, almost nonchalantly. “Who you know as Cecil is definitely not me, but I’m definitely Cecil, so he must be definitely not-Cecil, right?” The boy’s grin grows wider and wider as he speaks. It does not reach his eyes.

Dana shakes her head. “No, that’s not right,” she says. “You sound like Cecil, and you look somewhat like Cecil, but you’re not Cecil.” She pauses. “How old are you?”

Not-Cecil looks at her for a long time. “Fifteen,” he says.

“Then you can’t be Cecil. Cecil isn’t younger than I am,” Dana says triumphantly. Then, she taps her fingers on the arm of the throne. “Who are you then? Are you Cecil’s brother?”

“The Cecil you know doesn’t have a brother,” not-Cecil says, his tone strangely sad, the smile still in place. He leans against the throne. Dana’s mouth drops open. No one else has been able to even touch the throne without being shocked or driven to temporary insanity or vanishing to another dimension that is almost like their own but with only one detail changed. No one.

“Who are you?” she asks again.

Not-Cecil rolls his eyes. “I told you,” he says, frowning now. “I’m Cecil. Cecil Gershwin Palmer.”

Dana lets out a little sigh. “Then what are you doing here, if you’re Cecil? Cecil’s the radio host. He can’t be in City Hall.”

“But I’m not in City Hall,” not-Cecil says. “You are, but space doesn’t always work like that you know.” He hops up on the arm of the throne.

Dana leans back away from him. “Shouldn’t you be on the show then?”

Not-Cecil jumps up, buzzing with excitement. He stays in the air, his feet hovering just at eye level with Dana. She has to crane her neck up to look at him. “Oh, I wish I could be on the show,” he says, dreamily. He crosses his legs in the air and props up his chin on his hand. “I’ve always loved the radio show,” he says. “I’m prophesied to be the host you know; I can’t wait!”

Suddenly, he frowns, looking down at Dana with almost an ominous glower. “I’ll be the host, you know,” he says solemnly. “Someday. It’s prophesied so it must be. I won’t let _anyone_ \--” he casts his glare somewhere to the left where Dana can’t see “--get in my way.”

Dana smiles uneasily. “I’m sure you will,” she says.

Not-Cecil laughs. “You’ll see!”

Then, the throne pulses again, purple interspersed with red. Dana stares down. This has never happened before.

Not-Cecil stares too. “Oh no!” he cries. “That means I have to go now!”

Dana’s grip on the arm of the throne grows tighter. “What does that mean?”

“Well, see, _someone_ ” not-Cecil says, his voice taking on an urgent tone as he glares sullenly at Dana, “bought Cecil Palmer at the auction,” he says. Then he huffs, crossing his arms. “I still can’t believe they did that! It’s not right to buy another person! Even if they are incorporeal spirits of people trapped in a mirror world without their body due to ancient magiks and buying them finally brought them out into the real world so they can take their life back from the being that has been inhabiting their body since then! It’s not right!”

The full impact of his words doesn’t hit Dana until he is talking again, and then it is too late to do much but gape. “Darn that municipal auction!” not-Cecil shouts.

“Who…,” Dana starts, unsure of how to finish the question. “Who bought you?” she finally bluntly asks.

Not-Cecil (Cecil? Dana isn’t sure anymore) groans. “The Mayor,” he says, still glaring at Dana (or maybe it was the throne).

“The...you mean Pamela Winchell?” she asks weakly.

“No,” not-Ceci snaps. “The Mayor. I am contractually bound to the current Mayor of Night Vale. That’s just how these things work.”

“Does that mean I inherited _\--_ no,  _acquired--_ you along with all this?” Dana asks incredulously, throwing her arms out to indicate everything she can see in the dark room of City Hall. She still sees bits of the radio station in her peripheral vision.

Not-Cecil leans in. “Yep,” he says, almost nonchalantly.

Dana stands up. Drops the mayoral cloak. Looks around. Scrutinizes Cecil’s face.

She sits down again. This must be what Cecil was like at 15, she thinks.

Dana _really_ does not like being mayor.

Not-Cecil suddenly turns, as if hearing something Dana cannot.

“What is it?” she asks.

Not-Cecil points somewhere off to the side, and when Dana turns her head she can suddenly see the radio station’s sound booth.

Cecil’s familiar voice slowly fills the room.

_...As the Sheriff’s Secret Police slogan goes, “Not our job, not our problem.”_

_Oh, no! Oh no! Um, I’m being told that the antiques have found a way into City Hall. The pack is entering the building. City Hall has been infiltrated by hungry antiques with no one left to protect our mayor!..._

Not-Cecil makes a face and mutters, “not our job” under his breath. When he sees Dana staring, he throws up his hands. “‘Not our job’ he says!” not-Cecil cries. “It’s _my_ job!”

“What?”

“Uuuuugh,” not-Cecil groans waving his hands. “Protecting the Mayor is part of the contract,” he sighs dramatically.

“That’s rather convenient,” Dana muses. A banging sound is coming from the door. “That must be the antiques,” she said.

“Wow,” not-Cecil says, “you’re rather calm for someone facing imminent death.”

Dana raises an eyebrow. “I’m used to it.”

“ _Neat.”_

Then, she pauses, leans against the arm of the throne. “Well, that and you’re contractually bound to protect me, right?” she says.

Not-Cecil rolls his eyes again, and Dana has the brief and strange thought that if he were a year or two younger he might’ve stuck out his tongue. “Uuuuugh,” he groans again. _“Fine,_ I’ll go.”

Dana smiles sweetly, but there is a shadow of worry behind her eyes, there must be.

Cecil’s voice bleeds through to her ear again. _Who will protect Dana? Someone! Someone must!_

Not-Cecil smiles too, and the sight is chilling, somehow. The grin does not seem to reach his eyes. “Luckily for me, piloting Cecil Palmer’s body comes with the contract,” he says, almost slyly.

Then, before Dana can really react, not-Cecil is gone. The radio station is gone with him.

The echo of _Someone! Someone must!_ stays in the empty room. Dana bites her lip, looks around, listens to the insistent banging growing at the doors.

The door bursts open. The antiques swarm. Dana sits, still, watches them tear up the cobwebs and rotting wooden furniture littered in the dark corners of the room. There is a brief pressure in her ears, and Dana blinks. She blinks, and then the Cecil she knows is there.

“I’ll save you, Mayor Cardinal!” he shouts, something mocking in his usual sincere tones.

Dana narrows her eyes, sits back.

Cecil moves faster than she has ever seen him. It is like there is a frenzied desperation in his jerky actions. Pieces of wood--rotten pieces, lacquered, sanded down--fly by her face.

Soon, the Sheriff’s Secret Police burst in the room as well. Dana purses her lips.

“Are you okay, Mayor Cardinal?” one of them asks her.

Dana does not take her eyes off the Cecil she has always known. “Yes,” she says.

The Secret Police Officer nods, and watches with her.

When it is all over, they take the Cecil she has always known almost gently by the shoulder. This is not an adverb that is supposed to apply to the actions of the Sheriff’s Secret Police. The Cecil she has always known nods, once, as his eyes meet the eyes of the Secret Police Officer.

Then, he turns back to her, smiles a sharp smile. Before he leaves he gives her a wink.

The door shuts with a bang when he leaves.

Dana sits, surrounded by the remains of deadly antiques.

She blinks.

The throne has started to blink red again. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Blink.

“Wait,” Dana says, before the Sheriff’s Secret Police Officer leaves.

They stop at the door. They are silent, but they regard Dana with anticipation--no, concern--in their eyes.

Dana considers. Whatever she says now will get to Cecil--be spoken on his show. Whatever is going on, he does not know. “Whoever you are,” she says instead, “ thank you.” Then, she thinks of the excitement in not-Cecil’s voice, the determination when he said _I will_. She adds, “I do not speak for the town or for the city government. I speak for myself, as a person, as a human full of blood and worry. Thank you for keeping me safe.”

Then, she pulls the dark black cloak back over her head, sits back again on the throne.

Somewhere, though she cannot see where it comes from, the radio is playing now. She hears her own words, echoed to her. The Cecil she has always known speaks as if in her ear.

Ordinarily that would be a violation of journalistic standards, which clearly say we should never help when we could merely watch, but…Dana! Dana is a friend of mine, and so I thank you for ignoring our sacred rules just this once.

Hector, who was not here, who had not come into the room even once, is turning into an antique. Dana listens with clear concern.

Cecil’s voice--it sounds so helpless… and I can do nothing for him! For this brave young person who saved my dear friend Dana!

The throne continues blinking red.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink--blink (a flash of purple).

_Ha,_ says not-Cecil, in her mind again. _‘Course you can’t do anything._

Dana closes her eyes, and in her mind the faces of not-Cecil and the Cecil she has always known blur together until she isn’t sure if she can tell them apart any longer.


End file.
